The Kepler space mission is underway. At 22:49 on Friday March 6th, the Kepler spacecraft was launched into space on a Delta II rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The missions goals are to search for rocky or terrestrial planets like the Earth. It will be observing an area of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which is rich in Sun like stars and looking for a slight dimming in these stars light output. This dimming would reveal a planet transiting the star.

Once a transit has been detected scientists can deduce much information about both the orbiting planet and its host star. The size of the planets orbit will be found by using Kepler`s 3rd Law of planetary motion. The planets size can be determined by how much the light from the star drops during the transit and the size of the star. And from knowing the size of the orbit and the stars temperature whether or not this planet could be habitable can be ascertained.